Shadow Flight

by Christine Feehan

  He tried not to stare, but it was nearly impossible to keep his gaze from returning to her breasts as she bent toward the sink.

  She rinsed her mouth out and glared at him, her gaze jumping to his chest and then remaining there, her lips forming that rounded O he liked to see, which gave him a few fantasies of his own. She waited until he finished brushing and rinsing before she turned her back on him and marched to the bed, flipping back the covers.

  “Where are you sleeping, Taviano?”

  “Right there in that bed beside you, Nicoletta. And don’t get weird on me. We’ve slept together before. This is the master bedroom, and this is where we’re both going to sleep.” Decisively, he pulled back the covers on the opposite side of the room from her.

  She paused in the act of getting into the bed. “It isn’t the same and you know it. You weren’t . . .” She trailed off again and pointed to his chest. “And I wasn’t . . .” She made some ridiculous circle with her fingers that seemed to encompass her sexy little supposed-to-be-non-sexy lingerie.

  He burst out laughing. “Use your words, tesoro. I usually can interpret, but this time, I’m failing.”

  Nicoletta sat back on the edge of the bed and laughed with him. “I think I’m so tired there aren’t any words. You took off your shirt. It’s kind of distracting.”

  “Since I’m your husband, I’ll take that as a compliment. Slide into bed and stop being afraid. I told you, you’re very safe with me. You’ve always been safe with me.”

  An expression slipped across her face and was gone before he could fully capture it, although he had a photographic memory and knew he would be able to pull it back up later and study it in detail. She’d looked almost sad instead of reassured.

  “Just don’t use the word husband anymore. Let’s go to sleep and we’ll call it good until tomorrow. Too much happened, and we can leave it all until we both get a good night’s sleep.”

  He waited until she slid under the covers, and then he slipped under them as well. Thankfully, she’d turned to face the long bank of glass that showed the woods just outside, extending branches with leaves and vines twisting and waving in the slight breeze. He fit his body around hers, one arm around her waist, locking her close to him. She had curled up, drawing up her legs, making herself small the way she did. He was used to her doing that; she had for as long as he’d known her.

  Taviano was much taller than Nicoletta was, and he pressed his hips tight against her bottom, expecting her to protest. She must have felt the tremor that ran through his body, because for once she didn’t object to his very close proximity. She didn’t turn, nor did she stiffen. She stayed very still. He kept his head above hers, staring out at the trees as they swayed slightly, dancing just that little.

  “Young riders are traditionally sent out to other countries to train around the age of fourteen. There is a family in France, the Archambault family, you know Elie, and it’s a big deal to get an invitation to train with them if you’re under twenty. Stefano was invited numerous times but he had turned them down because he watched over us. When I was nine, he was invited again, and that time, he decided to go. My other brothers were all out of the country and Emmanuelle was with our aunt in New York. I was the only one left here, so Stefano thought it was okay to leave. I told him I would be fine. I knew how to cook for myself. Eloisa and Phillip were never around anyway, and I’d be all right.”

  Taviano paused for a moment, rubbing his chin on top of her head, the shadow along his jaw catching in her silky hair, tying them together just as their shadows did.

  “This family in Italy that we knew said they would train me, and Eloisa and Phillip wanted me to go. That way all of us would be gone at the same time. Stefano didn’t want me to be sent out so young, but they insisted. Stefano knew the family in Italy. He had trained there as well, so he agreed and he went to France. I spent three months in Italy with them and then I was supposed to come home, that was the deal Eloisa and Phillip had with Stefano, but apparently when the time was up, my parents didn’t want me back, and Stefano wasn’t home.”

  He couldn’t help the rage building in him from transferring to the grip he had on her, and he had to make an effort to relax his hold. Adrenaline gave him the shakes, and he needed to jump up and pace almost as much as he needed to hold on to her, afraid she would desert him the moment she knew the truth.

  “Eloisa and Phillip made some deal with another family of riders, two cousins, not very well known, the only two left from that particular family. They were older, two men in their forties. All the other families had students. No one investigated them. I was sent directly from the Italian family to them, and I know they weren’t investigated because the family was reluctant to send me and asked Eloisa and Phillip twice if they were certain. They said no one ever used that family anymore.”

  Nicoletta started to turn her head, but he couldn’t look at her, so he pushed his face into her shoulder, forcing her to stay still. She pushed her body back against his, almost as if she knew what he was going to say.

  “I was with them for three months. It was the longest three months of my life.” He rubbed his face against the back of her head, her hair once again tangling in the rough stubble along his jaw. “It wasn’t as long as you were with those assholes that you were given to by the state, Nicoletta, but it seemed forever to me. I don’t know how you did it. I had my tenth birthday while I was there, and it was a nightmare. I’ve hated birthday celebrations ever since.”

  Her hand slid over his, the one locked around her waist. She pressed her palm tightly over his and then her head bent toward her other hand, and her mouth came down over her palm, her teeth biting down as if to keep from screaming for both of them.

  “I was afraid they would kill me before I could get back to my family. They threatened to kill me if I told anyone. I think they were going to arrange an accident, but then Eloisa showed up to take me back. Stefano had come home, and he was furious. I told Eloisa everything on the plane ride home.”

  Abruptly, he stopped speaking. He couldn’t find his voice. He was that scared, hurt ten-year-old boy all over again, when he had closed that door and thought it would remain closed so many times over the years.

  “What did she do? She must have been so angry.” Nicoletta’s voice was muffled. It sounded as if she was crying.

  “She looked at me so coldly. I thought maybe she was frozen. Like ice. I kept thinking that. That she was ice inside, and I wished I was ice inside. I wanted her to put her arms around me, but I knew she wouldn’t. She just stared at me. And then she told me we had to talk to Phillip first, before anyone else.”

  “Phillip? Your father?”

  “Stefano is my brother. He might be older than me, but he’s still my brother, and at that time, Eloisa was the head of the Ferraro family. What she said went. Phillip was a rider, but he didn’t like it. He didn’t train the way he should have, and he didn’t ever go into the rotations to work as a shadow rider. Eloisa was the respected rider. She didn’t say another word to me until we reached Chicago and Phillip met us at the house.”

  Again, Taviano had to pause. He tried not to think or feel like that ten-year-old boy. He’d seen the distaste in his father’s eyes. The utter repugnance. “My father never looked at me after that day. He told Eloisa that if she made it public that his son had allowed two forty-year-old men to play with him for months, he wouldn’t stick around. It was bad enough that he had to know about it and see the kid every day.”

  “What?” Nicoletta’s outrage spilled over, not only in her voice but in her body as well. The rage that was in him poured off her. “That’s insane. Your own father had that reaction? You were ten years old. How could you stop two forty-year-old men? That’s crazy, Taviano. Utterly insane.”

  “He couldn’t look at me. He wanted Eloisa to ship me back to Italy. He told her another family of riders would be happy to have me
. He all but insisted. In the end, they compromised. She didn’t want to lose her status as a rider, so there could be no divorce. That meant no counseling for me, and no one else, particularly Stefano, could know what happened, but I had to remain in the home. Phillip gave in and allowed me to stay so that Stefano wouldn’t have any idea anything was wrong, but he still refused to have anything more to do with me.”

  “I can’t believe your mother would be okay with that. That makes no sense. What about any other child sent to those terrible men?”

  “Those men, who I’m not certain were really on the books as riders anymore, were found dead with their necks broken a few weeks later.”

  “That had to be Eloisa, right? At least she did that for you.”

  “I wanted to think Eloisa killed them to serve justice or to avenge me, but my guess is she did it to keep anyone from finding out the actual truth of what happened, especially Stefano. He might have killed her. He still might if he finds out.”

  He was making that a distinct warning. It wouldn’t serve any purpose telling Stefano, nor would he want him—or the others—to know after all this time. He understood why Nicoletta had trouble looking at him when he knew so much about the details of her past and what her step-uncles and Benito Valdez had done to her. He hadn’t filled in the details for her, but it had all been done to her, so she knew. He didn’t want to have to face Stefano and the storm that would follow when his brother realized he hadn’t been protected as a child. It would be difficult enough to face Nicoletta in the light of day.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nicoletta squeezed her eyelids tight against the hot tears she couldn’t stop on Taviano’s behalf. She should have known. He held himself in such rigid control at all times. He wanted to be the one in control. He was watchful. Careful. Saw everything. Was aware of everything.

  He had always been so good with her. So understanding. No matter how terrible she’d been to him. How many times she’d said mean, cutting things and tried to push him away. He understood, and he kept coming back. He knew. Another wave of love for him washed over her. He hadn’t had anyone, when he should have had an enormous family to help him through. That was almost worse than what she’d been forced to deal with.

  “Your parents, Taviano. What were they thinking? You should have had counseling and so much love and support, just what you all offered to me.”

  “My mother was thinking she didn’t want to give up being a rider. If Phillip left her, that’s what would have happened.”

  “She chose riding over her son? Never. Never in a million years, Taviano. Oh my God. I can’t stop crying. You have to help me stop.”

  He shifted back and turned her into him. She found her face pressed against his bare skin, and she was breathing him in. That scent that was only his. Only Taviano.

  His arms were around her, holding her tight, the way he’d held her so many nights after her nightmares had awakened her. No one had held him. No one. Not even when he was ten years old.

  “Stefano would have held you, Taviano. He would never have rejected you.”

  “I know, amore mio.”

  Her heart leapt at his use of the endearment and the quiet acceptance in his voice. God, why did the world have to be such a vile, ugly place? The Ferraros appeared to have everything. Taviano was a golden prince. Damn Eloisa and Phillip to hell for their selfish decisions.

  “We’re not doing that.” Her declaration came out muffled and her lips tasted his skin. He tasted like love and temptation. “We’re not ever doing that.”

  “What aren’t we doing, piccola?”

  His tone was gentle, in total opposition to her decisive, belligerent, ready-to-go-to-battle war cry. She didn’t care. She meant every single word of her declaration.

  “We’re not sending our children off to foreign countries and strangers to train them no matter what the traditions are. If you insist, or Stefano does, then I’m going, too, and I’ll be sitting right there to make certain no one touches one single hair on their heads.”

  He rubbed his thumb over her forehead and then pressed his lips there twice. Her heart jerked hard in her chest before settling down to a wild rhythm that threatened to pound through her veins in tune with her overwhelming connection to him.

  “I’m with you one hundred percent, Nicoletta.”

  “How can you stand to look at her?”

  “Eloisa?”

  “She says the ugliest things to Emmanuelle and all the other women and yet you know what she did. If the others knew . . .”

  “And they never will. She changed after that. I didn’t see it at first, because I was a kid and I was so hurt. I withdrew and acted out. I hated myself. I didn’t want to be around my brothers, especially Stefano. I was afraid he would see something was different, something was wrong with me. That I was ‘dirty.’”

  She couldn’t help squirming uncomfortably. She understood exactly what he was talking about. It was no wonder he knew exactly what she had been doing in those first few years. He’d been so young, with no one to turn to. No one to guide him through. His own parents had effectively cut him off from all help.

  “I realized, as I grew older, that Eloisa, although she’d been a shit mother to us when we were babies, had gotten better when we started training. She laughed more and did things with us. She’d begun to interact with us. She wasn’t the greatest, but she seemed to be learning, especially with Emmanuelle. Eloisa reverted back to her cold ways after the incident. I think that’s why Emme is so much more tolerant of her than the rest of us. She remembers that and is always trying to get it back.” He nuzzled the top of her head. “Or maybe Emme’s just more compassionate than the rest of us.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed into him. “I don’t know how we’re going to do this, Taviano. You deserve so much more than you’re going to get with me, but I swear I’ll always have your back, no matter what comes at us.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Nicoletta.”

  He pressed another kiss onto the top of her head and then with his casual strength, turned her so that she once more faced away from him, settled her into her favorite sleeping position and then wrapped himself around her.

  “I really hope your sister tells Eloisa we’re married tonight so she can stay awake all night and lose her freakin’ mind.”

  Taviano laughed softly. The warm air blew against the back of her head, sending little shivers of awareness down her spine. If she hadn’t been so exhausted, so emotionally overwrought, she would have responded physically, but she closed her eyes and savored the idea of lying in bed with Taviano while his mother stewed somewhere, furious that he was with Nicoletta.

  “I think we’re going to spend a lot of time working on meditation.”

  She loved the genuine laughter in his voice. Just the fact that she could make him laugh after his disclosure made her happy. Taviano, like his brothers, was a gentleman. He was very used to getting his way. He could buy and sell small countries. He owned anything he wanted. In the time she’d been around the Ferraros, she’d come to realize, for all their wealth, the core of who they were came down to one thing—family.

  When the doors were closed, they were very different from the men and women they showed to the public. They might appear to live glamorous lives. They raced cars and attended all types of charity functions. They were invited to every party. They jetted around the world, chasing the best snow, the best view of the northern lights, whatever it was they seemed to have gotten in their heads that day, or they visited cousins to party.

  They always wore their signature suits, looking handsome, and Emmanuelle, stylish and beautiful. They were the Ferraros. Untouchable. They smiled, but those smiles were rare and certainly didn’t reach their eyes, which made them appear all the more mysterious and dangerous. Rumors were abundant, mostly because they were beyond wealthy and their origins wer
e Italy and Sicily, so they had to be in organized crime; others said they were self-made, but no one knew how their massive fortune had been acquired.

  Nicoletta had seen them completely differently from the personas they projected to the world. Behind closed doors they were a close, loving family. Aunts and uncles to little Crispino, they vied for his attention and spoiled him until Stefano objected and removed him from them and spoiled him by becoming a gym, allowing his son to climb all over him, making his brothers, sisters-in-law and wife laugh at him.

  They genuinely laughed together. They preferred to spend their time together. They cooked meals; in fact, she’d learned that Taviano was an excellent cook. Francesca loved to cook, and the two of them were usually the ones to put together the meals so they didn’t have to eat out, where others could intrude on their privacy.

  When Vittorio had introduced Grace into the family, she had been accepted immediately. More than accepted, she had been embraced by the various family members, as had Sasha when Giovanni had married her. Lying there, with Taviano wrapped so closely around her, Nicoletta realized that his family had accepted her as well. She had been the one to hold back.

  “I wish you’d had a choice,” she murmured. She was so sleepy she knew he probably couldn’t understand what she was saying. Her words sounded, even to her own ears, as if they were blending together.

  His arm tightened for a moment around her waist. “There’s always a choice, piccola.”

  “Not if you’re a rider, it seems.”